100 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



good decoy, for kites and hawks will take a stoop or 

 two close over his head, and crows, jays, and magpies 

 come to mob him. I had a raven, while at Cranford, 

 which was so tame that I could toss him up (he was 

 pinioned) on to the nearest bough, and he would 

 ascend to some bare branch to sun himself or plume 

 his feathers, and croak at every large bird he saw. 

 So used to the killing of other vermin was he, and so 

 pleased with it, that whatever fell to the gun, he 

 would descend the tree in the most amusing hurry to 

 get to the ground, and with his ponderous beak 

 hammer the head of the fidlen victim. When the 

 decoy for the place was over, a lure of meat would 

 always bring him to hand. This puts me in mind of 

 a story told me of a raven. The bird was tame and 

 pinioned, and had strayed from his owner's house 

 into the orchard of the villaoe curate. A lot of rooks 

 having visited the parson's cherries, the reverend 

 gentleman kept his gun in readiness, and seeing the 

 raven under his trees, he stalked him by the aid of a 

 hedge. Bang went the fruit-avenging gun, and the 

 raven, having felt a shot or two rattle on his feathers, 

 began to hop and flap along the ground as fast as he 

 could. Up ran the parson, thinking to secure an 

 offender, to be impaled as a future scarecrow, when 

 just as he was about to grasp the raven, the bird 

 opened his mouth to bite, and cried, "D — n your 

 blood ! " So startled was the divine, that he threw 

 down his gun and ran away. 



With traps, gun, and raven, an enormous amount 

 of vermin soon came to hand. The largest bag in 

 one day of old and young jays, when they had left the 

 nest, was thirty-two, and at the end of the year my 

 list of all sorts gave me five hundred head. When I 

 killed a winged vermin, I brought home his head or 



